Eating Real Food for a Healthy Lifestyle

Homemade Paleo Mayonnaise & A Cautionary Tale of Baconnaise

Being relatively new to the paleo lifestyle, sometimes I will be sharing some recipes I find that are experiments for me. Today’s effort is mayonnaise. In the great Mayonnaise vs. Miracle Whip debate, I am firmly in the Miracle Whip camp. I come from a long line of Miracle Whip lovers. My great-great-great-great grandfather lugged around a giant block of ice so that he could have a supply of Mircle Whip durring his campaigns in the Civil War. O.K., that last bit isn’t true, but Miracle Whip is practically in my genes. It is one of the non-paleo foods still in my fridge. However, I have been determined to try to get rid of it. As a result, I have been playing around with homemade paleo mayonnaise. I found some great recipes on the Paleo Diet Lifestyle website including one I’m sharing below for homemade mayo. In the paleo version you replace the soy oil with a 50/50 mix of olive oil and coconut oil.

The results are O.K. Does it compare in flavor with Miracle Whip (which I know isn’t real mayo) or Helman’s? No. Just tasting it straight up, I didn’t either like or hate it but found it to taste pretty oily. However, when I spread it on my bacon wrap I found the taste to be much better when mingling with other flavors. So, its not bad, but I am hopeful that this will work out even better with a little more experimentation. Subsequent to finishing the mayo this morning, I found another site that stresses that using regular olive oil and not extra virgin olive oil is important so that it doesn’t have a strong olive oil taste. I used Bertolli EVOO and didn’t think it was OVERLY olive oily, but I’ve long suspected the Bertolli olives are not quite as virginal as they pretend to be — the tramps! Nonetheless, next time I make this I will use a different oil and see if the flavor changes.

Bacon Wrap with Homemade Paleo Mayonnasie

Technically, this is the second time I have attempted a homemade mayo. The Paleo Diet Lifestyle site also said animal fats, such as bacon fat, can be used to replace the oil in the recipe. Immediately I was drawn to trying to make it with the bacon fat. The resulting product, baconnaise, sounds fabulous in theory — who doesn’t like mayo with their BLT? — but tasted horrible. Baconnnaise = epic fail. Blech! It really just tasted like bacon grease and there wasn’t anything I could add that seemed to change that. I think I’ll stick with non-animal fat versions for now.

PALEO MAYONNAISE

Ingredients:

2 egg yolks

1 tsp dry mustard (optional)

3 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil (see note in my post above about EVOO)

1/2 cup coconut oil – melted

Directions:

Most recipes I’ve seen say this can be made in a blender or food processor. Several tries (and several wasted eggs) later I discovered that both my blender and food processor had too large of gaps under the blade to make mayo. The eggs settled under the blades and nothing mixed. I finally dug out my Kitchenaid stand-mixer and it worked perfectly. A hand mixer, or possibly an immersion blender, would also work well. Hand whisking is doable, but seems like a lot of work. On a somewhat unrelated note, I sold an antique mayonnaise maker on Ebay for $700 a few years ago. I wonder how that would have worked? One thing is for sure —that would be some expensive mayonnaise! On with the recipe…

Put the yolks in the mixer bowl with the mustard (if using) and 1 tsp lemon juice and mix those ingredients together;

Start whisking vigorously (mixer speed setting medium low to medium) while dripping the oil very slowly, even drop by drop in the beginning. You’re creating an emulsion and if you put too much oil at once, it will separate and will be very hard to save. Whisk non-stop;

As you add more oil, the emulsion will form and the mayonnaise will start to thicken and you can pour the oil faster at this point (but still drizzle in relatively slowly);

When all the oil is incorporated and the mayonnaise is thick, add the rest of the lemon juice and taste your creation. I used a spatula at this point to scrape any splashed oil off the side of my mixing bowl to be sure it got mixed in. You can season to taste with salt and pepper. (Be a little careful with the salt. I found it got very salty very easily.) I also added 1/8 tsp dried thyme for a little extra flavor. You can experiment with other herbs that will complement what you are serving it with.

You can make it with just olive oil. The other paleo site I looked at did theirs with only olive oil. However, the coconut oil is even better for you than olive oil. It has to do with the type of fatty acids in it (lauric acid is the big one). It’s not strictly a paleo thing. Google “Health Benefits of Coconut oil” and you’ll find a bunch of stuff.